Mid-Qing China Research Articles

Lost in Luxury: Climate Change and Silk Consumption in Mid-Qing China (1735–1840 CE)

A quantitative approach has been promoted to understand the history of climate and society. Statistical research on luxurious expenses under climate change in past societies remains insufficient, however. Hence, this study statistically examined the association between climate change and the imperial court’s luxury expenses on silk products in mid-Qing China (1735–1840 CE) by including major ecological–social–economic stresses. Results indicated that the Qing imperial court’s silk consumption increased under favorable climatic conditions and a flourishing agrarian economy, and vice versa. Natural disasters and social crises hardly affected the Qing imperial court’s silk consumption, however, suggesting its limited support and inactive attitude toward ecological–social–economic stresses. Such an institutional weakness might have increased social vulnerability, which could have led to Qing China’s decline since the eighteenth century. The study serves as the first attempt to reveal a long-term historical climate–luxury linkage and further provides a supplementary explanation of the economic decline from the perspective of the history of climate and society. Based on past lessons, this study emphasizes institutional activeness to tackle upcoming climate change challenges.

清代中期広東沿海住民の活動,1785〜1815年 : 「吏科題本」糾参処分類を中心に

清代中期広東沿海住民の活動,1785〜1815年 : 「吏科題本」糾参処分類を中心に

緣情説禮———論孫希旦禮學思想的形成

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 《禮記集解》是清儒孫希旦的重要禮學著述，它在清代中葉的禮學研究中别具意義，反映了清儒在思想轉型上由理學過渡至禮學中所付出的努力。在永嘉學派的思想指導下，孫希旦通過驗證“天理”和“人心”的存在，建構其禮學思想的内涵，期盼從“情禮相輔”的説禮原則中，消融人情和人欲之間相互排斥的對立因素，積極爲永嘉學派所倡導的“事功名”、“通世變”等思想提供合理可行的依據。
 Sun Xidan’s (1736-1784) Collected Commentaries on the Book of the Rites is an important study of the classic. It was of special significance in relevant scholarship in mid-Qing China (18th century) because it represented the efforts of Qing scholars on the ideological transition from neo-Confucianism to the study of the rites. Based upon the philosophical framework of the Yongjia School, Sun Xidan’s scholarship on the rites concerned verification of the existence of “heavenly principles” and “human conscience.” Through his advocacy of the “reciprocal aids between sentiment and the rites,” Sun aimed to eliminate the elements of antagonism between human sentiment and human desire. He played an active role in justifying certain doctrines of the Yongjia School, such as “achieving deeds and renown” and “comprehending historical evolution.”

Cultural Strategies and the Political Economy of Protest in Mid-Qing China, 1740-1839

Cultural Strategies and the Political Economy of Protest in Mid-Qing China, 1740-1839

Cultural Strategies and the Political Economy of Protest in Mid-Qing China, 1740-1839

In the historical study of contentious politics, political economy theories see the transformation of the dominant form of contention from reactive violence to proactive demonstration in early modern Europe as a result of large-scale political-economic processes like state formation and market expansion. Culturalist theories emphasize instead the significance of large-scale cultural reconstitutions in forging such transformation. Judging between these two theories is no easy task, as macropolitical-economic and cultural changes were concurrent in most cases. Mid-Qing China (c. 1683-1839), which experienced state centralization and commercialization in conjunction with a relatively stable neo-Confucianist hegemony, constitutes a telling case that helps resolve the debate. By analyzing a catalog of political protest events derived from archival sources, I find that Chinese protest changed from predominantly reactive violence in the seventeenth century to proactive demonstration in the mid-eighteenth century and back to reactive violence in the nineteenth century. The general direction of change can be explained by the cyclical trajectories of state formation and market development alone. At the same time, the specific claims and repertoires of protest were always delimited by the cultural idioms available in the overarching neo-Confucianist orthodoxy of the time. This study suggests an integrated perspective synthesizing both culturalist and political economy accounts to offer a fuller explanation of macrohistorical changes in contentious politics.

Early Modernities and Contentious Politics in Mid-Qing China, c. 1740–1839

In the last three decades, a spate of research brought to light the dynamics of contentious politics in early modern Europe. These studies suggest that surges of commerce and centralized state power led to a transition of contentious politics from reactive to proactive claims, and from violent to non-violent repertoires. This literature assumes the uniqueness of the western experience, and pays little attention to the non-western world. This article is an attempt to examine the patterns of contentious politics in mid-Qing China, a period when China witnessed profound commercial growth and political centralization. Based on a catalogue of contentious events derived from archival sources, the article finds that contentious politics over mid-Qing China changed from predominantly proactive and peaceful actions to more reactive and violent forms. The direction of transition was opposite to that in Europe, and could be explained by the specific trajectories of state formation and commercialization in early modern China. The article also argues that the modern revolutionary movement in 20th-century China was a continuation of the reactive, violent contentions of the early 19th century. This study shows that ‘modernization’ of contentious politics in non-western civilizations is rarely a simple repetition of the western way, but is rather a complex interaction between western influences and indigenous tracks of development.

Recent Chinese Scholarship on the History of Chinese Secret Societies

The 1990s witnessed a wave of English-language studies of Chinese secret society history, 2 building on and surpassing the foundations established by the Jean Chesneaux-edited volumes of the 1970s. 3 Dian Murray's The Origins of the Tiandihui 4 provided a comprehensive overview of the historiography and history of the Tiandihui, bringing order especially to the complex and confusing Chinese historiography since the Republican period, and making it possible for other scholars to work on the Triads without having to take on the entire weight of that tradition. Essays in "Secret Societies" Reconsidered, 5 edited by Mary Somers Heidhues and myself, brought together case studies of Chinese secret societies in South China and Southeast Asia, thus beginning the task of reconstituting the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century world of Chinese secret societies, in many ways international from very early on. My solo volume, Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China, 6 sought to apply a local history approach to the study of the early history of the [End Page 139] Triads in Fujian and Taiwan, and to examine the links between brotherhoods, secret societies, and local popular and religious culture. Barend ter Haar, in his brilliant work, Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads, 7 took this approach much further, exploring the meaning of Triad rituals in the context of the popular religious culture of South China. 8

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition (review)

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition (review)

Ownby David: Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China: the formation of a tradition. xvi, 235 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. £30.

Ownby David: Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China: the formation of a tradition. xvi, 235 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. £30.

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition, by David Ownby

<i>Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition,</i> by David Ownby

Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China: the formation of a tradition. By David Ownby. pp. xviii, 235, 5 maps. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1996. £30.00.

Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China: the formation of a tradition. By David Ownby. pp. xviii, 235, 5 maps. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1996. £30.00.

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition. By David Ownby. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. xii, 235 pp. $39.50.

Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition. By David Ownby. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. xii, 235 pp. $39.50.

Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China: the formation of a tradition

A note on conventions Introduction: Chinese brotherhoods and secret societies through the opium war 1. Brotherhood associations in Southeast China through the Lin Shuangwen rebellion 2. Brotherhood associations, secret societies, and rebellion: the background to the Lin Suangwen uprising 3. Rebellions with and without secret societies: Zhu Yigui and Lin Shuangwen compared 4. Secret societies and popular religion: the Tianhihui in the Western Fujian-Eastern Jiangxi region in the Jiaqing-Daoguang period 5. Marginality and ideology: Qing representations of brotherhood associations and secret societies 6. Chinese brotherhood associations and late imperial China Appendix A: Participation in the Lin Shuangwen uprising Appendix B: Chronology of the Lin Shuangwen uprising Notes Bibliography Glossary Index.

Book reviews

Book reviews

Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820

Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820

State and Market in Mid-Qing Economic Thought. The Case of Chen Hongmou (1696-1771)

This article seeks an understanding of the basic assumptions underlying economic policy-making in mid-Qing China, through an analysis of the pronouncements and actions of Chen Hongmou, a long-serving provincial official identified by later writers as an examplar of the "statecraft" (jingshi ) movement. The Qing imperial administration was strongly committed to utilizing what we would term "market mechanisms" to achieve its economic goals. It sought to achieve the highest possible volume of commodity circulation (liutong ) and to uphold the principle of determining prices by market means (shijia ), as the best methods to ensure provisioning (yang ming) and generate wealth (sheng cai ). It recognized the existence of laws of commerce (maoyi zhi chang ), which state policies could not effectively contravene. This did not mean that the state could not play a highly activist role in the economy, but rather that achieving desired economic goals required adapting policies to, and making sophisticated use of, market forces. The article concludes by noting the similarities between this lineof economic thinking and that of eighteenth-century French physiocracy.

Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820.

Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820.

Exile in mid-Qing China: banishment to Xingiang, 1758–1820. By Joanna Waley-Cohen. pp. xv, 267, 3 figs., 3 maps. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1991. £22.50.

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Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820

Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820